


thirty pieces (the price of blood)

by Theonenamedafterahat



Category: Black Sails
Genre: Angst, Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-30
Updated: 2017-09-30
Packaged: 2019-01-07 07:32:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,292
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12228393
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Theonenamedafterahat/pseuds/Theonenamedafterahat
Summary: James and Thomas talk about Silver (post-reunion)





	thirty pieces (the price of blood)

The only thought in Thomas’ head is: _I should have expected this._

“I don’t -“ 

Bethlem left him with a curious affliction - an inability to speak his own mind in times of great distress. Never has he loathed it more keenly. 

“I - _James,_ you can’t -” 

James sighs heavily, but does not turn to face Thomas. “I must.” 

Over the past decade, Thomas has learnt the many different ways a man can react under torture, and often it depends on one’s own character. There were men in Bethlem who hated their captors, who fought at every opportunity (and Thomas was once one of them). There were some who tried to reason with those causing them pain (and Thomas has been among their number, too; for far longer than he is now comfortable with remembering). 

Most move through these states to find themselves resigned to the pain. 

Worst and most tragic of all, in Thomas’s mind, were those men who sunk further still - who were persuaded that their suffering was necessary. That there was something corrupt and foul inside of them that required correction. 

Thomas could always tell when a man was convinced of that lie. There was something in their eyes, some faint echo in the sound of their voice. 

So he knows that he should truly have expected this, should not now be faint with shock, should have taken steps to head James off of this course of action before it even began. 

Only he never thought to listen for that same echo in James’s voice. 

He wants to say, _James, I swore I would never beg for anything again, but I will do so gladly if it will keep you by my side._

But he can only say, “Please -“ 

“I cannot put you in danger again.” Christ, Thomas never thought that James’s voice would cause him pain, but his words seem to burn. “Never again, I - Thomas, I can’t.” 

“So you plan to leave me?” 

If he were thinking clearly, he probably wouldn’t have tried to sit up and reach for James. But with grief clouding his judgement, it is all he can think to do. 

At least his shout of pain gets James to turn around. Thomas regrets the look of horror and shame on James’s face but he cannot regret James’s arms around him. 

“Christ, Thomas - you can’t get up yet, the doctor said you need rest -”

“I need _you_ ,” Thomas retorts.

The tenderness on James’s face makes Thomas want to weep. When James presses their foreheads together, Thomas gives in to the urge. His next words follow a small sob: “James, _I need you_.” 

“I know,” James soothes, and oh he has always been good at that, his voice has always made Thomas feel safe, even the memory of it brought him some comfort in Bethlem, back when he could still remember it clearly. “I know. I didn’t mean now. Not now, of course not. I would never leave you in this state.”

This state: three days after leaving the plantation where he was intended to spend the rest of his days as a slave. 

This state: shortly after waking from a surgery to remove the bullet from his side; a single, unwanted memento of the man who preached reform in the New World, but enabled the worst vices of the old. 

This state: having woken to find the love of his life, a man he has wished and longed for and loved constantly for ten years, packing his things and stating that they must part ways.

There are black spots at the edge of his vision - his view of James’s face is being obscured. Within five minutes, he will be unconscious again; this Thomas knows from experience. 

He has to force the words out. “But afterwards. After I am recovered. You intend to leave me. Why?” 

James does not answer. Thomas sobs again as he feels James kiss his forehead gently, then pull back. 

“You’re bleeding again,” James says quietly, sadly. 

“Please,” Thomas hates how weak his voice is. He hates that his grip is not enough to keep James at his side. “Please, don’t…” 

He wants to say, _who hurt you? Who convinced you that your pain was necessary?_ But before he can, darkness surrounds him and he knows no more. 

 

————— 

 

When Thomas wakes, he finds that James has fallen asleep in the chair by his bedside, head resting on the bed near Thomas’s leg. At some point during Thomas’s slumber, James had taken his hand; he holds it near his face - Thomas can feel the faint inhale/exhale of James’s breath on his fingers. When Thomas tries to pull his hand away, James makes a faint sound - unmistakable as anything but a negative. 

Thomas does it anyway; watches the sadness on James’s face at the loss; watches his expression calm when Thomas starts to stroke his head. 

James always did love to be petted in this way. Thomas can’t help but smile at his contentment, at the way he sighs and rubs his cheek against Thomas’s knee. As a young boy, Thomas had known a cat at Ashbourne who would curl up and demand to be stroked in much the same manner. 

As his hand is occupied with James, Thomas cannot check, but he is certain that were he to lift the collar of James’s shirt, he would be able to make out the bruises he had first seen shortly after their reunion. 

Spreading from James’s collarbone down his torso like ink in water, they tell a violent, patchwork tale of the lengths to which James must have fought to resist being sent to Oglethorpe’s plantation. 

James had confessed to Thomas on that first night, as Thomas had traced them, unable to tear his eyes away, that he hadn’t believed Thomas was truly there. 

_Would it have changed anything?_ Thomas had asked softly. _If you had believed, would you have submitted to this?_

James had been quiet for a moment, before replying, _No. I would have saved you._

At the time, Thomas had been so overwhelmed by the miracle of James’s return that he hadn’t stopped to consider the obvious conclusion to the evidence of James’s bruises. 

James fought hard against his imprisonment, so he was savagely beaten. And now, as Thomas lies; immobilised by the twin agonies of the bullet wound in his side and the imminent prospect of James _leaving,_ he realises that he had neglected to give thought to _who_ it was that sent James to him in the first place. 

James may have thrown off the shackles of shame, but perhaps someone found bonds far more difficult for him to escape. 

“Who did this?” Thomas keeps his voice low, keeps stroking James’s head and listening to the sound of his breathing. “Who did this to you?” 

 

————— 

 

The next time Thomas wakes, James is standing at the window. 

Thomas isn’t entirely certain where they are, only that James believes it to be safe. When Thomas asked him about it after their arrival, James only said that it was a safe house that had once belonged to a friend of his. Thomas had wanted to ask more about the mysterious ‘Mr Gates’, but he really was losing a lot of blood at that point, and shortly after he had collapsed. Neither of them had been in any state to have a conversation about James’s former friend in the confusion that followed. 

James turns as Thomas reaches for the water on the side table. He bats Thomas’s hand away from it, pours a glass himself and helps Thomas to drink. 

“You’re awake.” 

“Yes,” Thomas mutters, “I’ve gathered that.” 

He can see that his tone hurts James, but there’s not much he can do about it. “I still remember what you said earlier,” he continues as James returns the empty glass to the side table. “Just in case you thought I’d forgotten.” 

For a moment it looks like James isn’t going to respond, but then he sighs. “Thomas…” 

“Don’t,” Thomas snaps. “I -” He grits his teeth against the scream building in his throat. If the chains Bethlem put in his soul are what stops him from keeping James at his side, then Thomas does not know what he will do. Burn in hopeless rage, most likely. It isn’t as though there is truly anything he can do about it. Even James cannot, now. Though Thomas has already explained that he in no way condemns the war James fought as Captain Flint, it has been made clear that this is in the past for James, as much as Thomas’s title and position are for him. 

He cannot speak as he would wish to. He cannot hold James as he longs to. 

All he can do is whisper, “James… don’t go.” 

“I won’t. Only once you are recovered.” 

“But why?” It feels like a question Thomas has been asking the world all his life. _Why are things this way? Why must that be? Why must all this pain happen to me?_

There is a decade of grief on James’s face and Thomas wants to kiss it away, but cannot. Even if it were possible to heal a man that way - Thomas cannot sit to reach James, injured and bedridden as he is. 

“For ten years, I tried to live with the knowledge that I had left you to be hurt,” James says. “That I had left you to die. And now I have seen you shot, bleeding in my arms. I -” his voice falters, and there is silence but for Thomas’s own heart beating loud in his ears. “I cannot live with it. I never could. Please, don’t ask me to.” 

“I’m not. James, I’m _not_ \- you’re not making any sense!” 

“You were my partner. More than that… you were everything. Then I lost you. I lost everyone who was close to me. You, Hal, _Miranda_ … even Eleanor.” 

Little Eleanor Guthrie. James has spoken about her often; told Thomas stories of her strength, her determination - how James would look at her sometimes and be reminded of Thomas. 

James smiles, but the only joy in the expression is a tragic, helpless kind. “They all died, one after the other, after getting close to _me._ And now, here you are. Alive. And I fear that _pattern_ might -“ 

“James, you are one of the most brilliant men I know, but you’re talking absolute _bollocks_.” 

 

————— 

 

It takes Thomas some time to get James to calm down after that. A little while longer for him to properly talk about it. 

He learns about a Spanish treasure galleon called _l’Urca de Lima,_ and James’s struggles to capture her. 

He learns about the thief who stole the schedule needed to track the _Urca,_ and the deal he made to keep himself alive once James and his men caught up to him. 

He learns about the way this man became the quartermaster of James’s ship; how James came to rely on him, to trust him. How James finally could no longer bear the weight of his past alone, and sought to share it with this man that he had come to trust. 

Thomas can barely get the words out, he’s so angry. “And… he told you…” 

“He noted the pattern of deaths of those closest to me, yes,” James says quietly. His voice is partially muffled against Thomas’s neck - neither of them had been able to continue the conversation long without holding each other. James is oh so carefully positioned so as not to cause Thomas any more pain; they are curled together like parentheses. It makes it easier for Thomas to breathe, feeling James this close. 

And right now, furious as he is, Thomas needs all the help he can get. 

“He said that those closest to me meet their end, not just during our relationship, but because of it. That…” James breaks off, takes a deep and somewhat tearful breath. “A pattern is a pattern, and only a fool ignores one because he does not care for the implications.” 

He shivers, and Thomas presses a kiss to the freckles at James’s temple, just because he can. 

“He said that you, and Miranda, and Mr Gates were all vulnerable to me. Had more to lose than me, less means with which to protect yourselves than me.” 

Thomas frowns. “…did he not understand that I was a Lord?” 

His heart clenches as James makes a sound somewhere between a laugh and a sigh. Whatever it is, there’s still no joy in it. 

“Thomas, I - I don’t think that’s what he meant.” 

Oh. Of course. A man like Thomas imagine this Silver to be would see caring as a weakness, wouldn’t he? 

“There were moments,” James continues quietly. “Things that I was able to dismiss at the time but which now seem to me to have been warning signs that I missed on the way…”

A beat of silence. Thomas takes his hand. James had been wearing two silver rings when he arrived at the plantation, but they were taken by the guards soon after. The skin where they used to rest hasn't tanned yet. Thomas kisses one pale line, than the other. When he looks up he sees that James’s eyes are closed.

“He was lying to me from the start,” James whispers. “I’m not even sure I know his true name. I assumed…” 

James’s knuckles are badly torn, and bruised. Thomas wonders if James might let him wrap them, then has to swallow the lump in his throat. It’s been so long since he was _kind._ He had thought he might have forgotten how. It would seem not. 

“I don’t know what I assumed. There was just so much to think about at that time; first the _Urca,_ and then Miranda… before I knew it, I had come to rely on him.” 

“There’s no shame in seeking companionship, James.”

A smile, small and sad but nonetheless, present. James still will not look at him. “You say that about everything.”

“And do you not believe me?” _Trust me, darling. Please._

“You know I do.” 

And Thomas thinks, _I wish that I could hold you._ Instead, he reaches across to run a hand over James’s hair. 

“But… I made myself transparent to him. Despite knowing that he had lied to me already, despite having seen him worm his way into the heads of my crew and gain authority over them because of it… I let him in. I didn’t know why. I still don’t.” 

James angles his head for more petting. Thomas obliges happily, and waits for James to find the words he is looking for.

When he speaks again, the soft cadence of his voice makes Thomas’s heart ache; it batters his ribcage like tides, following the moonsong of pain in James’s voice as it waxes and wanes. 

“After he said what he said, after he - as good as told me that I got you and Miranda killed… he said that he feared that he would be the next in line. And in the months that followed, through the war and chaos, the one thought I could not get out of my head was that I could not allow him to come to harm.” 

James presses his face against Thomas’s neck.

“I killed a man for him. Just before the end. A man who was loyal to me, who remained by my side when all else failed me. He raised a pistol to Silver and I shot without a second thought. Because if he were hurt - if he perished as a consequence of becoming my friend, my partner -” 

Thomas takes advantage of the break in James’s voice to interrupt. “James. Darling. Even if he _had,_ that would not have meant that he was right about Miranda and I. 

“Thomas…” 

“Let me put it another way. I was not your partner. You were _mine_. As Miranda was my wife, and you my lover. I brought you into this. Tell me truly, if you had not met me, would you have turned pirate?” 

He waits until James has removed his face from his clavicle. 

“No.” His voice is soft, uncertain. His eyes are heartbreaking. 

“Does it not then follow,” Thomas says, “that _I_ am the one who should be concerned about this ‘pattern’?” 

There is more that he could say. That Miranda would be as offended as he is himself at James blaming himself for their misfortunes, perhaps. But Thomas can remember the hollow comfort of that argument. It would not help, James would not feel better. So Thomas will not say it. 

James looks achingly young, and very much like he’s going to cry. Thomas can feel tears of his own. 

“You are not cursed, my love. Nor are you God.” 

Shaking, James curls even closer. They breathe in tandem. 

“I think that the two of you did a great deal of projecting on one another.” Thomas says quietly. The tenderness he has left in him is bitter and hurt and mostly sad, and he would give it all to James. “Your bond was clearly real, and intimate - at least in part - but it denied you both the ability to see the other clearly. Mr Silver needed you to be a villain in order to feel better about his own monstrous actions. If you were his own darkness given form then he could excuse it as something pushed upon him rather than something inside him.” 

_Know no shame_. Thomas can remember writing those words, a lifetime ago, just as he can remember the look on James’s face when he read them.

_I’m sorry._ One of the first things that James said to him after their reunion. _I’m so sorry. I should never have left you. I should have protected you. I should have found you._

A man James trusts comes along, and tells him that Thomas and Miranda’s deaths were his own fault. He does this for his own reasons, to secure his own position, and James believes him. Of course he does; a man who so clearly tears himself to pieces over what other people think of him. How could he not be drowning in shame, after all he had been through? 

“And you, my love…” 

That is to say, James already believed it. So when Silver confirmed it, James believed him. 

“You need to be seen,” Thomas finishes sadly. 

A choked-off sound, animal pain.

“James - You can’t blame yourself for his betrayal. _It was not your fault._ Just because you were both blind to each other’s true selves, does not mean that you are equally responsible for his actions, because they were _his,_ and his alone. The Maroon Princess, what was her name?” 

“Madi,” James replies, finally. 

“She too was deceived by Mr Silver, yes?” 

“I believe so.” 

“And is she to blame for what he did?” 

James does not reply this time. Thomas falls asleep listening to the sound of his breathing. 

 

\-----

 

He wakes up to James reading, leaning a red book against Thomas’s hip where he’s lying on his side. When James notices that Thomas is awake, he brings him salted meat, cornbread and broth, and apologises over and over that it’s not more. Thomas smiles and bites his tongue and doesn’t tell James of the years when he would have wept at the sight. 

As he eats, he remembers how he regained consciousness once or twice, on their journey from the plantation to this modest seaside cabin. He did not understand what he was seeing at the time. Flashes, mainly. A surprising amount of pain, the bright sun in his eyes; James. He remembers hearing more than he saw. The horror in those beautiful green eyes was only seen briefly. He remembers better the way words hiccuped out of James’s chest as he begged. 

The blood. There was a lot of that. For a moment Thomas is breathless - a little epiphany, a sweet pain deep in the soft parts of him - there was no blood on his hands when he first regained consciousness. James must have wiped them clean. 

“I keep thinking about how long he planned to send me away,” James tells the book once Thomas is finished, running his fingers down the page. 

“Weeks, you said.” 

“At least that,” James nods. “After I found out that he took the cache, I was so angry. He told me that we would find a way… to put it all back together again. The war, the alliance… he demanded my support as his partner. As his friend. But he was lying to me.” 

He sounds stricken. Being furious is tiring, Thomas knows that as well as anyone. Sometimes allowing oneself to be sad is just the easiest option. 

“Right then, in that moment,” James continues. “If he had any intention of continuing the war then he would have had no need to let me go on thinking you were -” 

“James. Come here.” 

James always had enjoyed sleeping sprawled over Thomas’ chest. Thomas runs his fingers up and down James’s spine, and wonders at the kind of strength James must have not to claw at his back, not to cling as fiercely as he wants to for fear of causing Thomas more harm. 

Thomas wants to take James’s weight, to cradle him close, but he _can’t._ He hurts, but it’s not only the physical burn of a bullet wound, not the wrenching emptiness of the past ten years. He doesn’t know how to describe it. Aspects of the pain are bearable, and are receding. Perhaps that is what makes them bearable. 

Other parts, Thomas thinks, will never heal. _This part._

It makes him ache, the shamelessness with which James displays his misery. But Thomas loves him for it. 

“I don’t understand how he could do that, I don’t - _he knew. He knew everything._ By that point, he even knew how it felt to lose his love.” 

James presses his forehead against the curve of Thomas’s neck and shudders weakly. He sounds lost. 

“How could he know and not tell me? How could he allow me to…” 

The first sob is not unexpected, but Thomas’s chest aches in sympathy. 

“Christ, after everything I did for him, and he for me… I don’t know if he never cared about me, or if he just…”

“Stopped.” 

James smiles weakly. “Exactly."

Thomas has to scrape the words out of his throat. “I’ve found myself wondering the same thing,” he says. “Ten years asking myself how long I was deceived. I still don’t know. I’ve come to accept that perhaps I will never know.” 

James closes his eyes for a moment, brows furrowed. Thomas watches as he struggles for words. 

“…When Miranda and I saw Peter, he told us that he had visited you in the hospital. That you had offered him your forgiveness. Is that true?” 

Thomas puts a palm over his own cheek, over James’s poor, battered fingers.

He must feel lonely - for all their shared experience, there is a limit to how much Thomas can understand this particular pain. Betrayal of this kind is so viciously personal. That’s the worst part of it.

“He lied to us,” Thomas whispers. “He betrayed us to my father. He had you and Miranda exiled, had me imprisoned. And when my father died, instead of freeing me, he sent me to live out the rest of my life as a slave. Even if he had not allowed Miranda’s death, and attempted to facilitate yours, even if he had told you both that I was alive… it would not have come _close_ to evening the score. I did not offer him forgiveness when he asked for it, and I am even less inclined to do so now.”

The kiss, when it comes, is shatteringly fragile. 

“James.” 

Their lips are so close together they brush with every word.

“Yes?” 

Thomas sighs, putting a hand against the back of James’s neck, murmuring, “You are under no obligation to forgive John Silver, and you don’t have to feel bad that you cannot.” 

 

\----------

 

It takes weeks before Thomas is recovered enough for them to sleep holding each other properly. The first morning that Thomas wakes to see James asleep on the opposite pillow, he is once again struck by how they have both changed over their decade apart.

One change in particular catches his attention. 

James sighs, and shuffles closer, ducking his head under Thomas’s chin, lovely hair all shorn away. Thomas wonders for a moment when he did it, and why. Perhaps because it was a way to sever a part of his life that he could never return to. 

“I know what you are thinking,” James says, without opening his eyes. 

“Oh?” 

A smile - a true smile, enough to make Thomas’s heart skip a beat - “You’re thinking about how much you miss my hair.” 

“Am I so,“ - he bites back the word _transparent_ just in time - “predictable, dear?” 

James hums a little. Eventually, he says, “You were right. I was wrong.” A deep breath. Then, ”I don’t want to leave you.” 

“I never thought you did,” Thomas whispers back.

James actually blushes. “I _will not_ leave you.” 

Their clothes still reek of smoke. The shirt James wears is stained with blood - not his own, Thomas’s. The shirt is Thomas’s too, in truth, given to James at the plantation. 

James had shredded his spare shirt to make bandages, and Thomas’s had been cut open by the doctor. When the doctor last visited, James gave him some coin to bring needle and thread with him the next time, so that James could mend Thomas’s shirt.

Thomas smiles, kisses the top of James’s head, and does not tell James how unsurprised he is at this news.

**Author's Note:**

> _"Then Judas, which had betrayed him, when he saw that he was condemned, repented himself, and brought again the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and elders, Saying, I have sinned in that I have betrayed the innocent blood. And they said, What is that to us? see thou to that. And he cast down the pieces of silver in the temple, and departed, and went and hanged himself. And the chief priests took the silver pieces, and said, It is not lawful for to put them into the treasury, because it is the price of blood. And they took counsel, and bought with them the potter's field, to bury strangers in. Wherefore that field was called, The field of blood, unto this day."_


End file.
